The past 3 days I spent on Necker Island, Richard Branson’s private island in the British Virgin Island, with about 30 other people who are active in the bitcoin and blockchain world. It was an amazing experience, not only because the island comes very close to what I think paradise would look like, but also because the summit was very productive and gave me lots of things to think about. If I would not be a venture capitalist and if I would not be involved in Uvamo I might consider to work on blockchain themes full-time. It is clear to me now that the blockchain is the future and is already starting to change the world.

This blog post consists of 2 parts, this is part 1 in which I will talk about how I experienced spending time at Necker Island. Tomorrow I will post the second part, which is about the blockchain summit itself.

Despite the fact that most of the companies that I was involved in in China were incorporated in the British Virgin Islands I had actually never been there. The group of islands, located about 150 km west of Puerto Rico, is more unspoiled than I had imagined. Road Town on Tortola (the place where most BVI companies seem to have their P.O. Boxes) is a small town, likely with a ratio of at least 10,000 companies per inhabitant. It’s a great tourist destination, although a bit off the beaten path (something I like).

Getting there is not easy. From Vancouver I took the redeye to New York, then I flew to San Juan in Puerto Rico and from there I took a very small plane to Beef Island (which is connected by bridge to Tortola). At San Juan airport I already met several of the participants in the lounge and later a few others at the gate. Not all of us took the same plane, because each plane only fits about 8 people, but there are air services at least once an hour. On my plane there were 2 other participants, Mike, a bitcoin trader from Chicago and Danny who runs a fund that invests the money of the founders of Alibaba.

After arrival at the BVI airport one of Necker’s staff picked us up and we took a minivan taxi to the marina (next to the airport terminal, we could probably have walked it in 5 minutes). I quickly understood that on Necker you don’t have to do anything, so even for a short walk transportation is always arranged. We arrived at the jetty where one of Richard’s 600 horsepower speed boat was waiting for us. We stepped on board and were immediately offered a drink. The bottle of champagne looked inviting, but because it was hot and we were thirsty from the long trip we opted to start with a cold local beer.

Then we took off. First slowly because of all the anchored sailboats in the bay (which immediately inspired me to go sailing here one day), and then full power onto the sea. The guy who drove our boat told us that the boats go up to 90 km/h. Not sure how fast we went, but it was faster than I had ever gone on a boat. We jumped over the waves and it was actually hard to drink the beer from the bottle! I took a few pictures but had to watch out not to lose my camera because of the wind.

About 20 minutes later Necker appeared on the horizon. When we got closer to the island a drone circled above the boat so the participants on shore could see who was arriving.

Necker is a beautiful island, with white beaches, tropical vegetation, tons of wild life (including 7-8 feet long iguanas and a large flamingo colony) and of course 5-star accommodations.

Danny and I shared a Balinese villa and after a short stop at the Great House (the main house on the island with a large lounge and great views), we got a electric golf cart to drive to our villa. Our place overlooked one of the beaches and a lake full of flamingos (they can be quite loud in the morning!). We quickly freshened up (our luggage was already in the room) and then went back to the Great House for cocktails with the rest of the group and for the official opening of the blockchain summit.

Necker Island is about 300,000 m2, so it’s not a very large island (I sailed around it on a Hobie Cat in less than 30 minutes). Only about half of the island is cultivated, the other half still looks like most of the other islands (quite dry with not a lot of vegetation). The part where the 6 villas and the Great House (with 8 additional bedrooms) are located has undergone a complete metamorphosis, the vegatation is lush and Richard built decent roads. The beaches on this side are beautiful and there are several swimming pools and hot tubs. The best hot tub is on top of the Great House, the highest point on the island. There you feel literally on top of the world!

You can actually rent the island, with prices started at $65,000 per day. That may seem expensive, but the island can house up to 30 people, so it’s actually quite reasonable for such a place. Of course you can’t just rent it for one night (the minimum seems to be 5 nights), so you’ll always be looking at at least a few hundred thousand dollars, similar to what you would pay for a super yacht.

Many of the world’s celebrities have stayed at Necker over the years, although the staff don’t talk too much about who they have met. I understood that Google co-founder Larry Page got married on the island. He liked it so much that he bought the island opposite Richard’s. I sailed there to take a look, it seemed like a nice place to live as well.

For $65,000 per day you get everything you can imagine. All food and drinks are included and the island has a total of 120 staff, so you don’t have to do anything yourself. The service is extremely good. Not only do you immediately get everything you want, but the staff also anticipated your needs.

Most of the staff are in their 20s and clearly chosen because they love to party and because of their looks (especially many of the girls were stunning). Richard likes blond girls, that was clear! But they also work hard and seem to be very happy to work in one of the nicest places in the world. The manager of the island is a cool guy as well, my impression was that he runs the island very well.

Virtually everything is possible on Necker and some parties go on through the night. When I left this morning at 6 AM the last people had just left the beach party (I wisely left the beach before midnight, I can guarantee you that spending almost a full day on planes with a hangover is an experience you do not want to have more than once in your life).

At 6 AM we saw a staff member walking along the road with a big wound on his forehead. When we asked him what happened he said that while dancing a tree suddenly popped up in front of him! It’s all part of life on Necker. The previous manager on Necker did not allow the staff to drink or to (fill in the blanks yourself) with the guests, but that did not fit well with Necker’s culture so he only lasted for about a week! Anyway, what happens on Necker stays on Necker, but you probably catch my drift.

The villas are very nice as well, on par with the best accommodations in other parts of the world. You have total privacy in the villa even when the island is ‘crowded’. The bathrooms are partially outside but they are built in such a way that you can see the island but nobody can see you. Of course that may change now that drones are on the island!

The mini bar was well stocked with nice bottles of wine and champagne (all included in the price of course), but there was no opportunity to drink any of it. The only thing I drank in the room was espresso, all rooms have a very good espresso machines.

Having your own private island seems like a nice thing, but after staying on Necker for 3 days I am not so sure if it’s really something I would like to have (assuming I could even afford it). I actually subscribe to a private island newsletter so I paid a lot of attention to the details of what it takes to live here. I think Richard made a smart choice to build small luxurious villas on the island and rent these out. Not only does it make living a lot more affordable (I am sure he makes decent money with the prices he charges, even with 120 staff on the payroll), but it’s also nice to meet interesting people all the time (most visitors seem to be celebrities or business people). Living on an island on your own will likely be quite boring after a few days already. Good to know that I can take one that off my bucket list.

Richard Branson was the host, but he was not very much involved in the event. He showed up at some sessions and at some of the meals, but most of the time he was doing other things. Part of the reason was that he has recently become a grandfather for the first time (actually 3 times in the past 6 months, one of his kids had twins, and another had a daughter), and the grandkids were on the island as well during the event. Richard even took his 3-month old granddaughter to breakfast one day.

Richard is very charismatic and I think that’s one of the reasons of his success. He is always laughing and interested to talk to everyone. Interestingly he also seems very knowledgeable about the companies that he runs: during one breakfast I happened to sit next to him and he was talking to the lady opposite me. She is a bitcoin miner in her free time, but her day job is at Virgin Galactic designing the pressured spacecraft cabin and training astronauts (so she actually works for Richard). He seemed to know a lot about the details of the spacecraft when others asked questions about it and he wanted to see the latest pictures.

Richard seems like a great guy to work for. He is also very sportive, I was told he runs and kitesurfs in the morning and in the afternoon I saw him playing tennis with his personal trainer.

Anyway, back to the reason why we were at Necker. Although it may seem we only drank and partied that was certainly not the case, the main focus during the 3 days was on bitcoin and its underlying ledger, the blockchain. Tomorrow I will talk about the main themes we discussed, our findings and our plans for the future.

You can find part 2 of this post here.

A set of all pictures that I took during the Blockchain Summit is here.

In late 2013 I heard from our medical entrepreneur-in-residence (thanks Bojana!) that Illumina would offer its Understand Your Genome program in Canada for the first time: a whole-genome sequencing including a personal analysis. I had read a lot about genome sequencing and had considered doing a 23andme test before, but of course doing a full genome sequencing is much more interesting.

In February I had an appointment with a doctor at a private clinic to discuss the pros and cons of doing a complete DNA sequence. For me it was clear that I wanted to do it, but it’s good to have a chat with a medical doctor to understand the consequences: when you sequence your genome you might learn things you may not want to know. There could be some diseases that will kill you and for which there is no cure yet (e.g. Huntington’s disease), so if you find out that you have one of them it may deteriorate your quality of life significantly. The doctor agreed with me that it’s better to know in advance that you will get a certain disease so that you can be prepared for it, instead of suddenly getting it.

After that a blood sample was taken and used as the basis for the sequencing at Illumina in San Diego. A couple of weeks later my doctor called me and told me my results were in. For a moment I wasn’t sure whether it was good or bad news that he called me, but luckily he immediately told me that I was not at risk for any uncurable disease like Huntington’s or Alzheimer. I made an appointment with him to go through my test results, which turned out to be one of the most interesting meetings I ever had, because of the things that I learned about myself.

There are a couple of things that I am at higher risk for, but none is very serious and all of them can be prevented by small lifestyles changes (if needed). What I found interesting to hear and important to know, is that some kinds of medicine don’t work for me. For example, one of the most frequently used chemotherapies has no effect on me. Knowing that is extremely important in case I should ever get cancer. You may lose valuable time by doing a chemo that doesn’t work. Next to that I learned that my body metabolizes other chemo medicines much faster than other people, meaning that I would need 2-3 times the normal amount in order for it to be effective.

Today Illumina organized an event in Vancouver for all people in Canada that had their genome sequenced. In total only 19 people had participated in the program, much less than I had expected. I think the price may have been one reason. Despite the fact that we got a lower rate than usual it was still not very cheap: US$ 5000 for the full sequencing incl. analysis, normally this is about $10,000 per person. Especially the analysis is very labour intensive we were told, the sequencing itself now costs less than $1000. In 2000 a full genome sequencing still took 10 (!) years and cost a stunning $3 billion. Technology changes very fast.

It was an interesting group of participants, all of them seemed to be quite successful in the business or in the medical world (incl. several people from universities) and all were of course very interested in genomics. I was one of the youngest in the group, something that doesn’t happen very often anymore.

Illumina is the leading genome sequencing company in the world and so far 482 people have gone through their Understand Your Genome program. I didn’t realize that so few people had done this, but it’s a good feeling to be among the first people in the world that got their genes sequenced. By the end of the year they expect more than 1000 participants already and after that it will likely increase exponentially.

Today’s event was partly to teach all of us about genomics and about what you can do with your results. But it was also the moment that all participants received their full DNA on an iPad. I can tell you that that was a special moment, from now on I can literally carry my DNA with me. Illumina developed a chromosome browser in which you can compare the reference genome with your sequenced genome. Variation from the reference means that something has changed, which means that you can have a higher risk for a certain disease, or that you will have certain characteristics/traits (they can be good or bad) that others don’t have.

 

Chromosome browser

For example, during the event I looked at DNA variations that cause red hair, that lead to a craving for alcohol, to obesity, to lactose intolerance and to whether you have Cherokees in your family. Luckily none of these genes had a variance for me, not surprising considering that I don’t have red hair, am not addicted to alcohol and am not obese. For me this was a highlight of the day and it is something that I will probably spend quite some time on over the next months. I want to understand myself better and it’s a lot of fun to surf the chromosome data and learn more about myself. If you’re interested to learn more, take a look at SNPedia.com, it has a list of many DNA variances and what their effects are.

After today I strongly believe that DNA sequencing will change medicine completely, and fairly soon already. It will revolutionize the way medicine will be practiced. No longer a doctor will need to look at symptoms, but he or she can look at your DNA for the cause of a disease.

A prenatal test for Down syndrome with amniotic fluid won’t be necessary anymore with DNA

Medicine will change from treatment to prevention of illnesses. When you know that you will get lung cancer at 50 if you would smoke regularly (this is a variance I have actually, so I am extremely happy that I don’t smoke – and that I don’t live in smoggy China anymore!), you are very likely to give up smoking right away before it’s too late. If you know your body does’t metabolize certain things well, you can prevent eating them regularly. Or the opposite, if your body metabolizes them too quickly, you can take extra vitamins for that. It means we will stay healthy much longer and may avoid diseases we could not avoid without knowing our full genome.

Because costs go down so fast the expectation is that all babies in the US may get a full genome sequence upon birth by 2023-2024. Insurance companies may even pay for that because they will save a ton of money when doctors can see right away what disease a baby may have or may develop. It may seem science fiction to most people, but today’s event has opened my eyes: I have seen the future.

Awareness of what is possible is needed, most people have no idea what can be done with sequencing, so education is necessary. I expect people to be afraid of this, so they need to learn that having their full DNA available will have huge advantages for them. Think for example about personalized medicine: most medicines that you get in the pharmacy actually do not work for you, or at least do not work optimal. They are made for the average patient, a person that doesn’t exist in reality. Based on your DNA a pharmacy can make medicine just for you, using chemicals that your body can absorb and in the right amount.

And the more people get their genome sequenced, the more we’ll learn about what variances mean. Although I now have my complete DNA mapped out and could theoretically clone myself, the results of many of the variances that I have are still unknown. When new findings about gene variances come out I can immediately check if they have an impact on me. For example, a couple of months ago there was a study that found that wine may have a positive impact on your heart. That’s what newspapers reported without mentioning that it depends on a certain DNA variances. We looked the variance up today and unfortunately I did not have the it, meaning that I still love to drink wine but that it doesn’t make me more healthy.

Marc Andreessen famously said that ‘software is eating the world’, today one of the speakers changed that to ‘genomics is eating the world’. I agree with him. This is a truly disruptive industry that will make the world that we live in a more healthy and happy place. I am glad to be part of this pioneering group and will actively spread the word and get people to sequence their DNA as well.

If you can afford it, do it. It will change your life!

Daily life is incredibly busy once again, I constantly feel that I need more than 24 hours in a day. I normally write my blog posts late at night, but now when I close my laptop around 11:30 PM I am often just too tired to spend time another hour on an article.

Lots of work and non-work related things happened this month, and many of these topics I would have written about if I would have had a bit more time. Therefore now a post with pictures of some of the highlights of the past 3 weeks.

Early May we went to the Mulgrave Gala Dinner, a fundraising event for our kids school with good food, wines, an auction, gambling and dancing. Last year I didn’t go because the Vancouver Marathon was the next day, but when I found out that this year’s marathon would again be the day after the gala I decided to go anyway. This year the theme was Bollywood, so many people dressed up in Indian dress and the food was Indian as well. We had a fun time and it was good to catch up with some of the other parents that we don’t see every day.

Grace and some of her girlfriends at the gala dinner.

Selfie during the evening

I won an auction for 70 nice bottles of wine, among others a 1997 Opus One and several even older high-end French and Italian wines. Enough to drink for the next couple of months!

Black Jack at Mulgrave (given the strict gambling laws in Canada you couldn’t play for real money)

The morning after the gala (basically just a few hours later) I joined the  Vancouver Marathon. The weather was very nice this year, much better than last year!

The Vancouver Marathon course is beautiful, but the hills in the first part are killing. Luckily the last 10 km is flat, except for the last 500 meter to the finish line.

The marathon itself did not go very well. I got an injury while running in New York in mid-April and that prevented me from training during the last weeks. It seemed the injury was gone, but it came back during the race. I did not want to give up, so I managed to finish but for the first time ever I ‘ran’ the marathon in over 4 hours (4:15 to be precise). Not something to be proud of, but quitting would have been even worse.

The Grouse Grind opened the week after the Vancouver marathon and because I couldn’t run anymore because of my injury I decided to give the Grind a try 5 days after the marathon.

The Grouse Grind had a lot of renovations during the winter, it’s now easier and less dangerous to do the climb to the top of Grouse Mountain. It’s also a bit less exciting to be honest, there are no real difficult part anymore.

My legs were still quite tired from the marathon, but luckily I still managed to do the Grouse Grind in less than an hour (58 min). The week after I did another Grind in 57 min. Not great, but given how busy I am I’m fine with these times.

It was quite warm this May so the kids have been swimming a lot. I decided to teach Elaine how to swim, and she picked it up fairly quickly. In the picture above she is still wearing two inflatable arm bands, but she can now basically swim without them.

When she plays with Scott in the pool I want her to keep wearing one armband, just in case. She doesn’t see the risks of swimming yet and is overconfident in her abilities, so that may lead to accidents.

Warm weather means great skiing weather in Whistler, so I took advantage of it during a weekend. Grace and the kids had brunch on a terrace in Whistler and I went up into the mountains for 2 hours of skiing. Whistler is just a one hour drive from our house, so it’s not too far for just a morning or afternoon in the snow.

Most people don’t ski anymore in May so it was very quiet on most of the slopes. Of course many lifts are closed, but the snow was quite decent.

The ski resort will be open until June 7 this year and over the summer months the glacier will be open for skiing. I may do some glacier skiing in July, especially because I have a ski pass that’s valid for summer skiing as well. I’ve never done that and it seems like a nice thing to do in the morning, while spending the afternoon on the water.

The highlight of May was probably the opening of U2’s new world tour iNNOCENCe & eXPERIENCe 2015. We’re not huge U2 fans, but because Bono rented a house in our street we decided to get tickets anyway. We didn’t regret that, the tour was fantastic, one of the best concerts I have ever been to.

The stage design was very different from other concerts. There was one main stage at one end of the arena, a smaller one at the other side, and a walkway stage in the middle, connecting both stages. A huge video wall in the middle of the arena could be lowered and the band played inside that video wall as well. Pretty cool!

Business friends from Holland that I had not seen for years had flown in for the U2 concert and the next day we had some nice wines at our place. I tried some of the wines that I had won at the auction, among others a very nice 45 year old vintage port wine. It was nice catching up and among others discussing my favorite topic (Bitcoin!).

Sometimes we are reminded that we are very close to nature. Last weekend was such a moment, when we saw a coyote crossing the road in front of my car. I immediately stopped and followed the coyote onto a parking lot. The animal was not afraid of all, but I was glad I was inside my car.

This week I went to Calgary for a due diligence meeting. I have been to many places, but so far I never made it to Calgary, so it was nice to take a look at the place (mainly from the air). The due diligence meeting went well, so it was worth the short trip.

The past 2 days I spent at the Canadian Venture Capital Association annual conference. It’s a good way to meet everybody from the industry in just 2 days and to hear news about new deals and new funds. And of course to have good food and drinks! Last night the keynote was given by Joshua Foer (see picture), a journalist who wrote about memory championships and became so fascinated by them that the decided to join them a year later. And guess what, he won the US championship! He taught the audience some tricks on how to memorize long sequences of words (on the picture he has a list of 100 words that people need to memorize at championships) or how to remember people’s names. We also received a copy of his book (Moonwalking with Einstein), and I’m planning to read that on the plane next week. Fascinating!

And finally, today Elaine had her 6th birthday. She was very excited about it and got lots of presents (mainly books that she wanted to have, but also some games and a Lego Friends set). She could choose what to eat for dinner on her birthday. I had expected french fries or something like that, but she opted for salmon pasta with a side of creamed spinach (an unexpected choice and an unusual combination).  Elaine is growing up so fast, I still clearly remember the day she was born. Sometimes I wish she would remain a toddler, but I actually also enjoy seeing her grow and learn new skills every day. Elaine, in case you ever read this, I love you!